Photo-credit: Amazon

"Engrossing. . . . fast-paced."

--The Atlanta-Journal Constitution

"A journalist's memoir unlike any I've ever read."

--Dave Davies, Fresh Air 

Author: Jake Adelstein

Year: 2009

Buy it here: Amazon, Book Depository

Summary:

A riveting true-life tale of newspaper noir and Japanese organized crime from an American investigative journalist.
 
Jake Adelstein is the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club, where for twelve years he covered the dark side of Japan: extortion, murder, human trafficking, fiscal corruption, and of course, the yakuza. But when his final scoop exposed a scandal that reverberated all the way from the neon soaked streets of Tokyo to the polished Halls of the FBI and resulted in a death threat for him and his family, Adelstein decided to step down. Then, he fought back. In Tokyo Vice he delivers an unprecedented look at Japanese culture and searing memoir about his rise from cub reporter to seasoned journalist with a price on his head.

Book description credit: Amazon

Photo-credit: Amazon

"The book offers a rare woman's view of Japan's criminal underbelly."

--The Independent

"[Tendo's] story...shines a light into a dark and little understood corner of modern Japan."

--The Guardian

Author: Shoko Tendo

Year: 2004

Buy it here: Amazon, Book Depository

Born to a wealthy and powerful yakuza boss, Shoko Tendo lived the early years of her life in luxury. However, when she was six, everything changed: her father was jailed, and the family fell into debt. Bullied by her classmates because of her father's activities, and terrorized at home by her father, who became a drunken, violent monster after his release from prison, Tendo rebelled. As a teenager she became a drug addict and a member of a girl gang. At the age of 15 she spent eight months in a juvenile detention center after getting into a fight with another gang.

During Japan's bubble economy of the eighties, Tendo worked as a bar hostess, attracting many rich and loyal customers, and earning money to help her family out of debt. But there were also abusive clients, one of whom beat her so badly that her face was left permanently scarred. Her mother died, plunging Tendo into a depression so deep that she tried to commit suicide.

Somehow, Tendo overcame these tough times. A turning point was getting a full-body tattoo with a design centered on a geisha with a dagger in her mouth, an act that empowered her to change her life. She quit her job as a hostess. On her last day at work, she looked up at the full moon, which became a symbol of her struggle to become whole, and the title of the book she wrote as an epitaph for herself and her family.

The paperback edition of Yakuza Moon features 16-pages of never-before-seen photos of Tendo’s youth, family, and tattoos, as well as a new foreword by the author, describing her life since the book was first published four years ago.

Description credit: Amazon